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Medical examiner: 'very forceful' attack
More testimony in dentist's murder trial
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Published: August 12, 2009
MOCKSVILLE - A woman who prosecutors say was killed by her husband could not have been moving when her throat was slashed twice, according to testimony yesterday in Davie Superior Court.
Dr. Kirk Alan Turner, who has a dental practice in Clemmons, is on trial on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of his estranged wife, Jennifer Jean Wittwer Turner, 54.
She was found dead Sept. 12, 2007, in the shop building at the couple's house at 627 Jack Booe Road, just north of Mocksville.
Dr. Donald Jason, a Forsyth County medical examiner, said that Jennifer Turner had a large gaping wound on the right side of her neck that consisted of two cuts.
Those cuts were deep enough that her trachea and windpipe were cut. Her jugular vein and carotid artery were also hit, Jason testified. And her cervical spine was cut in two places, he said.
"It was a very forceful attacking motion to cut through all that," Jason said.
Jennifer Turner had to have been in a fixed position when her throat was slashed, he said under direct examination.
Prosecutors have argued that Kirk Turner killed his wife with a pocketknife. Defense attorneys have said that Kirk Turner was defending himself against his wife, who they say attacked him with a 7-foot-long Viking-like spear. They said that she stabbed him twice in the thigh near his groin, just missing his femoral artery.
Jason testified that Jennifer Turner also had defensive wounds on her left hand and a bruise on the back of her head that was caused by blunt force trauma.
He said that she was still alive when she received the bruise on her head and that it wasn't severe enough to knock her out. Defense attorneys argued in opening statements that she suffered the bruise when she fell down after a struggle with Kirk Turner.
Also testifying yesterday was a blood-stain analyst with the State Bureau of Investigation. He said that a blood stain on Kirk Turner's shirt was consistent with the pocketknife that prosecutors say Turner used to kill his wife. Prosecutors are arguing that Kirk Turner wiped the knife on his shirt.
Jennifer Leyn, a former SBI agent, testified last week that blood found on both the pocketknife and Kirk Turner's shirt matched Jennifer Turner's DNA.
The SBI analyst, Gerald Thomas, said he concluded that the blood stain could not have been made any other way.
One of Turner's attorneys, Brad Bannon, in his cross-examination, argued that the blood stain wasn't made by Kirk Turner wiping the knife on the shirt.
Under cross-examination, Thomas said that his opinion remained unchanged.
He also said under cross-examination that by January 2008, law-enforcement officials believed that Jennifer Turner had not attacked Kirk Turner with the spear and that the wounds Kirk Turner had that night might have been self-inflicted.
Testimony in the murder trial is scheduled to continue at 9:30 a.m. today.
■ Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com.
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